For those players on the bubble, the opportunity to impress U.S. national team manager Bruce Arena and make the World Cup team has come down to a precious couple of games.
After Wednesday's game against Germany at Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund (2:30 p.m. ET; ESPN2), the U.S. has one other international friendly -- vs. Jamaica in Cary, N.C. on April 11 -- before they hit training camp in May.
So Kansas City Wizards forward Josh Wolff realized that "a good game could go a long way for a lot of guys, including myself.
"It's important as usual. It's big," Wolff said. "There is a lot of pressure on the Germans. There is pressure for us to perform.
"You're here for one reason -- because you can play. He (Arena) puts you an environment because you can succeed. It's up to you as a player to make the best of the opportunity."
The same goes for New England Revolution forward Taylor Twellman, who has been productive against CONCACAF teams and Japan since last year, although Arena wants to see what he can do against some tough European teams. Twellman was blanked in the 1-0 win over Poland on March 1, although he did set up the lone goal by club teammate Clint Dempsey.
He's got another opportunity against the World Cup hosts.
Asked if he felt time was running out on his opportunities to impress, Twellman replied, "I don't necessarily look at it that way. But on the other hand, we don't know the starting lineup, so we'll see."
There were strong indications that Wolff and Twellman would start the match.
"Look, they're attacking players so they need to create goal-scoring opportunities," Arena said after practice on Tuesday afternoon. "Those are my expectations of attacking players and they're players who are capable of getting goals. It would be nice to see one hit the back of the net."
The Americans enter the match without several key attacking players, including midfielders Landon Donovan (right calf strain), DaMarcus Beasley (club commitments with PSV Eindhoven to play in the Dutch Cup) and Claudio Reyna (not released by his club, Manchester City, because it was not an official FIFA international date). Real Salt Lake defender Eddie Pope, who has lower back pain and has been ill, is expected to start the match on the bench.
"I hope we're not thinking it's patchwork," Twellman said. "It would be stupid going into the game thinking we don't have a chance. I think everyone here is relishing the chance to play. Obviously the stadium is awesome. We're playing a great team. It should be a lot of fun."
Added Wolff: "I won't say we'll play conservative. We're going to respect what the Germans do well and obviously be mindful what that is. We're looking to play the way we usually play."
In the wake of their 4-1 shellacking by Italy on March 1 and some intense criticism and scrutiny of head coach Juergen Klinsmann, the Germans are under the gun to produce a positive result.
"They're going to come out flying," Twellman said. "Their last game against Italy didn't turn out the way they wanted it. They're at home in front of the home crowd.
"We want to win the games just as bad as they do. It's a matter of us coming out, showing up, working hard, winning the 50-50 balls and showing up better than we did against Poland in the first half.
"They've got some pressure on them and they're going to put some pressure on us early so we've got to be able to withstand that, come back and hopefully finish our chances."
A crowd of more 60,000 is expected to root on the Germans in their final international friendly until May.
"We have an understanding of what's coming," Wolff said. "Once you get inside this atmosphere, that will lift us as well."
Michael Lewis writes about soccer for the New York Daily News and is editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He can be reached at SoccerWriter516@aol.com. Views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
